


light me, and i'll burn for you

by 3minswriting



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Romance, Soulmate AU, bottom dongho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:53:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28045737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3minswriting/pseuds/3minswriting
Summary: In a world where soulmates burn for each other, Dongho seeks friendship before he sees the flames.(Minhyun, luckily, is not heat-resistant)
Relationships: Hwang Minhyun/Kang Dongho | Baekho
Comments: 11
Kudos: 40





	light me, and i'll burn for you

**Author's Note:**

> man this one didn't want to cooperate at all but it happened anyway lol. pls be gentle it's been a while ;;

-

Dongho didn't know that Hwang Minhyun was his soulmate when they first met.

From what Mingi had told him, you were supposed to know somehow - "It's like a fire, really hot, sudden. I don't know how to tell you what it's like," Mingi said, "but you'll know it when it happens."

He'd definitely felt hot before - growing up in a tropical climate had that kind of effect, so much so that he didn’t really notice anymore when it was humid if it weren’t for the way his clothes became soaked with sweat on any given day. 

After all, what was a degree or two spike in internal temperature? Hardly noticeable, Dongho thought. And when one’s body settled on it’s new baseline, everyone knew 37C no longer felt unusual but natural, and the initial burn faded to just a memory of that one fateful meeting.

Dongho has heard all the stories - most soulmates have them. 

Mingi loved to talk about the moment he and Jeonghan reached for the same jacket at the same time ( _"_ _I told him I was never gonna hand it over, he tried to snatch it, and then when we looked at each other, really looked, that was it...”_ A grin, _“and then when he was distracted I nicked it.”_ ). Dongho had also heard it from his parents in short snippets. The sudden internal _knowing_ that spread like wildfire through a field of yellowing grass. 

Nothing like that happened with Minhyun.

Just a middle school day like any other, where Dongho sat at his desk and killed time writing in his notebook in the tiny break between classes. His eyes were glancing out the bright window, idling pen dragging awkwardly over the page. 

The cherry blossoms were beginning to bud on the trees, he remembered. How the countless tiny little brown nubs that thorned bare branches would in a matter of weeks explode into fluttering bouquets of pink and white.

_("Dongho-yah, please. How could you even remember that?"_

_"Because! I do!"_

_"You're making things up to sound more romantic."_

_"Nah, no one'd believe anything about us is romantic.")_

The lyrics drafted in his notebook had been about them. Cringy, if he was to look back on them. Typical falling flower petals and the story of a single blossom that woke only when the heat of their soulmate's presence finally arrived. 

_(and if he'd been scared that he would never blossom back then, Dongho had kept that fear tucked away in between verse one and the pre-chorus)_

He'd been ready to continue when a sudden shadow fell over his shoulder.

"What's that? Homework? Have you finished Exercise 32, because-" 

Dongho had looked up, forearms crossing over his exposed words instinctively. 

"-I haven't and I think Ms Kwon is going to make me write answers up the front today-"

There he stood, the boy who would become his best friend, his soulmate, and the love of however many lifetimes Dongho would get.

Tall, limp black hair, narrow eyes and rounded cheeks, friendly lips moving a mile a minute between the occasional spurt of pitched laughter.

Hwang Minhyun. 

"-and I didn't have time to finish it because Movie club ran late yesterday. Did you know that ' _My Boss, My Teacher_ ' is a sequel?" a laugh, "-I never saw the first one I had to watch it before we went to the cinemas bu-"

No heat. No exploding flowers suddenly blossoming in Dongho's stomach. 

Just a single distinct thought: 

_'Wow, this guy talks a lot.'_

  
  


"-uh-" Dongho opened his mouth. 

Minhyun was already walking to the window, cranking it open and letting the spring breeze through the gap. A relieved sigh escaped the tall boy, not even silent when relaxing. 

"Ah, this room..so stuffy." He'd muttered.

Dongho hadn’t noticed - Summer was always hot, wasn’t it, and in winter they blasted the heaters so the sweat staining his thin cotton shirt was a permanent fixture since he’d transferred here. 

"Spring's really close! Can't wait for the end of the year festival my club's gonna be-"

"-I haven't done it." Dongho blurted out.

It took ten seconds of more talking and another slip of cool air from the window before Minhyun had realised he spoke.

"Huh?"

"Exercise 32...I didn't finish it either..." Dongho admitted, looking away. Knowing his luck, Ms Kwon was going to call on him to write up the answers on the board, and the thought was making him sweat even worse.

“Oh.” Minhyun cocked his head to the side. 

He stared at Dongho, as if seeing him for the first time, which was ridiculous. They’d been in class together since the end of last summer. Minhyun was popular, well known as the kid with a thousand allergies - including his own sweat, which, Dongho thought was rough because Minhyun definitely seemed to sweat a lot all year. There was some solidarity in that, because Dongho knew that feeling all too well. 

Yet the two of them never spoke, though now that he was hearing how many words hid behind Minhyun’s cool expression, Dongho wasn’t sure if he should consider himself blessed or cursed. 

Silence settled for all of a few seconds. 

“Ok!” Minhyun grinned, grabbing his desk and dragging it over until it was flush against Dongho’s. 

Their elbows bumped and Dongho flinched away from the damp of someone else’s sweat hitting his arm, worried his own would irritate the allergies of the other.

“What are you doing?” Dongho folded up his notebook. It sat as a comforting weight against his chest, which was fluttering

( _like cherry blossom petals, falling, flying on a farewelling winter’s sigh)_

and watched as Minhyun neatly stacked his textbooks and a small packet of tissues on his desk. He applied three tissues to his face in calm succession, letting his sweat glue them in place. It was cute, in a way, Dongho thought, how methodical he was. 

“We should hurry,” Minhyun set the opened textbook to settle between their joined desks, a cheerful bridge that curved like the smile he flashed, “you do one to eight, I’ll do nine to fifteen.” 

“I-uh-” 

Dongho considered his lyrics, unfinished yet so close to it that he could almost hear the full melody in his mind. Music was his future, not Chemistry problems where mathematical equations cloaked themselves in innocuous letters to lull him into a false sense of camaraderie. 

Words were his friends, numbers were not.

Everyone knew that.

Why Minhyun had approached _him_ of all people - and the classroom was hardly empty, even the other’s bestie Seongwu was sitting three rows down - he had no idea.

But as he glanced at his classmate

_(Minhyun’s expression was cool again, settled into concentration as he leaned in closer while reading)_

Dongho supposed maybe some things weren’t meant to make sense. He pulled out his book and opened it to a fresh page, pencilling in a ‘1.’ 

  
  


He only lasted to question 2 before he couldn’t hold it in any longer and stood up, notebook in hand.

“Hey, uh Minhyun?”

His seat neighbour glanced up, tissues flapping on his cheeks like ruffled feathers. 

“You sit here.” Dongho shuffled out of his seat, conscious of the wide eyes following his movements. When Minhyun didn’t move, he gestured vaguely at the tissues, “It’s cooler next to the window I think and you’re-” 

“Oh!” Minhyun slid over.

The thin paper on his cheek tissue fluttered free

( _like a cherry blossom petal, falling, flying on spring’s laughter)_

dislodged by his cheeks puffing up in a smile while Dongho resettled at his side.

“Mm, definitely cooler here. Thanks, Dongho-yah.”

Dongho’s head snapped up at the casual words but Minhyun was studiously staring down the textbook as though it held all the answers to the universe. The tips of Minhyun’s ears were burning bright red - redder than before - and the breeze didn’t seem to be doing much for the sweat situation.

Dongho was starting to feel warm too as he looked at Minhyun’s profile ( _must be missing the window breeze already, that had to be it)_. Maybe that discomfort was responsible for him blurting out the words that would end up having the other stuck like a sweat-damp tissue to his side for the rest of their lives:

“You should sit here next time, if you’re hot. So you don’t get sick or something.”

“Yeah, ok,” Minhyun had ducked his head, grinning at his textbook, “I will.”

-

  
  


The fire did come, eventually. 

Suddenly, just like all the stories said it would.

( _except 'suddenly' didn't feel right, not the way it had bloomed as though dormant through a long, long winter)_

Eight years and sharing an apartment with his best friend later, it had been a warm spring day.

Not too hot for Dongho, though he’d been mindful to pass Minhyun a few tissues as they stretched out on the couch watching re-runs of 'To the Beautiful You'. They'd been scoffing at the acting but still reciting the lines to the screen between crunches of popcorn. The humidity was barely noticeable, arctic wind hissing from the air conditioner above the TV. 

Afternoon sunlight broke in fragments between the fluttering columns of the thin balcony blinds, half-drawn. So were Dongho's eyelids, drooping until another involuntary shiver woke him up.

"Can't you turn it off?" Dongho whined in the commercial break, "why am I getting goosebumps when it's thirty-five out?" 

"You can always get out, you know." Minhyun threw a piece of popcorn at him. 

Dongho fished it out between the thin film of his singlet and the curve of his collar, chewed on it obnoxiously loud and bared his teeth in a crumb-speckled grin when Minhyun called him gross.

"I'm saving you cleaning up, what do you mean?" Dongho threw back. 

Another blast of cold from the aircon flaps hit him and his lips dropped into a pout, "It's cold, damn it."

"Hmm." Minhyun paid him back with a grin of his own; tidier of course, because there was no way Dongho could catch his immaculate best friend with flecks of popcorn in his teeth. 

Then the commercials were over and Dongho forgot about the blanket he'd been about to get. 

He didn't need it, anyway.

Heat, warm and pleasant, draped itself over his lap, the outside of Minhyun's knee resting comfortably against Dongho's belly. It hadn't mattered that his best friend was wearing shorts, that the touch of bare skin on his own was too warm, too pleasant, that he'd easily wrapped his arms around the raised angle of Minhyun's left leg. He set his chin on the dip of his best friend's knee, and they kept watching the TV. 

(Minhyun told him later, he hadn't been watching. 

"Then what were you doing?" Dongho asked, wriggling closer under the cool sheets.

"Waiting."

"For?"

and Minhyun smiled - his usual thin-lipped, half smile that left Dongho thinking that this man might be his best friend and one of the loves of his life, but he'd never be his soulmate, because soulmates were meant to understand each other and he had no fucking clue what the hell Minhyun was thinking.) 

It could have been ignored - the heat, the smoothness of Minhyun's thigh against his forearms keeping him warm, the cold still blowing on his bare shoulders- because he really loved this scene. 

Dongho had been transfixed. The heroine was opening her mouth to deliver her haughty speech.

And then, at that moment, the salt-crusted brush of Minhyun's fingertips swept across Dongho's lips as he fed him another piece of white fluff. Rough. Warm. Dongho had opened his mouth obediently the moment Minhyun's wrist moved into his periphery. A puff of popcorn pressed to his bottom lip and he'd reacted on instinct - rough crystals, soft skin, Minhyun's allergies - a blur. 

His tongue slipped out and tasted salt. Pink lips closed around two digits, keeping them in place as he cleaned away every grain, every flavour lodged in minute whorls and under blunt nails.

Dongho had frozen. The fingers in his mouth were still. The TV continued to play out a classic love scene and the legs in his lap suddenly felt heavy.

So did the two digits now carefully, experimentally depressing the wetness of his tongue. 

He'd turned then, gulping around Minhyun's fingers and his lips began to fall apart.

Minhyun was staring. Not at the screen, not like he ever looked at any screen ever 

( _but his ears were fire engine red and he was sweating, like every other time the weather turned and they spent more of their time cuddling on the couch, that Dongho had grown used to it, to everything, except sometimes when he caught Minhyun looking-)_

Just at him.

"Ah-" Dongho began. 

An apology was on the tip of his tongue, an awkward giggle clinging to the roof of his mouth. 

He only got through one syllable and half a breath before Minhyun's fingers were gone and his own mouth replaced them. Then the legs on his lap were braced on his hips instead and Dongho was forced back against the cushions. His hands gripped at Minhyun's sides, pulled him closer as his best friend dragged him up by the chin, by the tongue, and then by the hand out of the sunlight and into the darkness found only between white sheets and slender, fox-like eyes.

Dongho remembered the heat of that day, burning between his spread thighs and under Minhyun's playful tongue. It started in a low simmer, a few embers. Ones he hadn't even known were there - except they had to have been, he'd reasoned, because it felt too natural to be completely spontaneous. Fingers like flames penetrating the shadows explored his trembling body, opening him in ways Dongho hadn't known were possible beyond the odd video and wet dream.

He’d felt guilty, countless times when Mingi would ask about them finding their soulmates, and his heart soared when Minhyun shrugged carelessly, “ _i_ _f I’m meant to find them, it’ll happen_ ”. Minhyun had never tried to look - and neither did he, because,

“ _Well, you’re not going anywhere.”_ Minhyun had spoken it matter-of-factly. 

Mingi would scoff, tell Minhyun not to just assume Dongho would be, he had his own soulmate to find-

\- but Dongho was an honest man.

He could never lie to his best friend.

No matter who it was out there for him, there was only one man he wanted for his future.

“ _Nah,_ ” He’d shrug, and turn up the air conditioning before dabbing a tissue to Minhyun’s cheek while the other continued the conversation.

They spoke now, in heated breaths, in low murmurs of each other’s names. 

"Dongho-ah," Minhyun's breath blowing against his ear sent another wave of warmth roaring through his nerves, "so sexy, so hot, feels so good, you feel-ah-" Another slow thrust, teeth at his earlobe and Dongho was shaking, begging for more. 

He hated how right it felt, almost, the burn of Minhyun’s heat inside him, the other’s limbs tangled between his own.

He'd hated how he couldn't help but be so loud when Minhyun fucked him, hung his head when he was on his knees and fingers held his bucking hips in place, "you really- nhh- wanted this," purred into his ear. 

"I- Minhyun-" Dongho’s body glowed with ecstasy, skin sparking under the other’s touch. He'd never really thought he could have his best friend like this. For years they'd been close and this was far from the first time they'd seen each other naked. 

But it had been innocent. He'd never really given thought, never realised what it could be like to truly be loved by Minhyun because he’d been too afraid that one day, the fire would come to Minhyun and the other would leave him.

It’s only when Minhyun's smoky eyes had stared into his today that he could see it, and Dongho finally let himself _feel_ the heat that had been burning for years under his skin. 

He’d been afraid, so goddamn scared, and Minhyun had _waited_

until he finally gave himself up to the flame that licked between them, soulmate or no.

“M-Minhyun-ah!” Dongho’s head thrashed, his lips desperate. His hips bucking, his fingers clawing, and Minhyun’s mouth fell hungrily on his own, swallowing his cries. 

“Dongho,” Minhyun was close, ready, and his body called Dongho to the edge. He was less patient now, the heat was almost unbearable.

Together, joined, Dongho was ready too, to fall for him

_(like a cherry blossom petal, scattering, dancing in spring’s embrace)_

The blaze consumed them from that day.

Hands intertwined, a slap, a smile or a laugh; every gesture that once felt so normal, suddenly smelt of spring and tasted like salt. 

The man who had grown up at his side (and kept growing, even when Dongho stopped) wasn't just his best friend anymore. They would be joking around, bickering in the kitchen, laughing at Mingi's deliberately off-key singing, breaking the silence of the room, and then Minhyun would catch Dongho's gaze and he could think of nothing else but fire. Crawling up his neck, tensing between his legs, breathing it in a single name the moment they were alone.

“Is this what it’s like to find a soulmate?” Dongho had whispered against Minhyun’s shoulder, scrubbed skin smelling of sweet peony and amber.

He’d thought the fire was meant to die out once their bodies settled to their new base temperature - Minhyun didn’t sweat much any more; Dongho still did, but he noticed the other’s ears still went red, he still felt too warm most days.

“Don’t know,” Minhyun replied, kissing the top of his head as he closed his eyes, “doesn’t matter. I found you.”

  
  


_-_

Dongho didn’t know that Hwang Minhyun had been his soulmate when they’d first met.

  
  


He’d become so accustomed to the constant burn of Minhyun’s flame, his body settled into the rhythm of a pleasantly roaring furnace.

That was fine. 

_(even if it took him eight years and Mingi would tease them every reincarnation for their stupidity in how long to took to recognise the signs)_

Because it wouldn’t have mattered if they weren’t soulmates; Dongho would have burned for Minhyun until the stars died out and nothing else in the universe but their love remained.

That alone, he knew, was infinite.

-

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading! kudos&comments are really appreciated!
> 
> ✦[fic twitter](https://twitter.com/3minswriting)✦


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